Hide Beside Me
by Kaiousei
Summary: A fill-in one-shot about the relationship between Seles and Zelos. Seles loves her brother - he's her hero. But she's stuck alone in a tower, jealous of the world for taking him away. Zelos loves his sister, but that won't stop him from living his life.


**Hide Beside Me**

While making my Zelos FST, I got hit in the face with a Seles muse like an 18-wheeler. The first time through the game, I couldn't stand the girl. I didn't know what was wrong with her. By the second time through and meeting the Tales of Symphonia fan-community as well as making friends with the Seles-loving Sylvie-chan, I couldn't resist. I still haven't managed to get the scenes with her and her brother after winning the tournaments, so whatever happens there was excluding from this fic.

So 'Hide Beside Me' is just a little personal consideration on the relationship between the Wilder siblings, the rise and fall, Seles' jealousy and the huge soft-spot Zelos has for his little sis. It involves a bit of fluff a bit of angst, etc etc... Some spoilers from later in the game, but mostly takes place before it. Some necessary Sheena/Zelos (shudder) it may be unintentionally incest-y, but I guess it's alright if you're into that kind of thing... I'll shut up for now. Thanks for reading!

...this fic is dedicated to Sylvie-chan! I hope she likes it...

* * *

"Let's get out of here." 

She couldn't do anything but stare at him in disbelief as he leaned far over the stairway, making sure that the coast was clear for them. His firey red hair was tied back into a sloppy ponytail; but he made it look regal, nestled in the canyon of his shoulder blades. For a moment, she was sure he was about to pitch over the railing as he curled over it - plummeting to the bottom and falling to his death before he threw his head back, whipping around and turning to smile at her. His eyes were sparkling with mischief.

"...Well?"

He waited patiently before she nodded slowly up at him, eyes wide and locked on his face. She had seen this man many, many times before, but now he was finally speaking to her as the sister that she was to him.

He nodded back. "Alright."

Together, they tied bed sheet after bed sheet end-to-end together until there was nothing left except her dresses, so they used those as well. Soon enough, she found herself giggling in excitement, leaving him to shush her repeatedly while trying not to laugh out loud himself.

After it was long enough to satisfy him, he pulled tightly against each knot to make sure it was secure. They then tied one end to her bedpost, securing it tightly before flinging the other end out of the window. She watched it carefully as the long rope of sheets fluttered and tried to escape on the wind, quickly failing and settling silently against the ground. He mentioned other possible escape routes here and there, but it was still only early afternoon. They only had one opprotunity before the guards would send him away. He didn't have to listen - but she knew that he would. They were going to take the chance that they had.

She watched him with concern as he climbed the trecherous makeshift rope down to silid earth as she remained perched in the corner of the window - knees against her chest and red dress waving its own dance in the fresh breeze. When he got to the bottom, he smiled up at her and opened his arms, coaxing her down.

But from her position, it no longer seemed like such a good idea.

"If you're scared, just jump, Seles! I'll catch you! I promise!"

She was a princess, denied what had been her right as the child of the Chosen. She was locked up in a tower because the world was too afraid to accept her for who she was - a quarter-elf, and living proof that there once lived a human in Tethe'alla who was perfectly able to accept half-elves. Her mother - a half-elf - had tried to kill the Chosen's other heir to earn her daughter the position she believed that she deserved. She was killed, and doomed Seles to an abbey in the middle of nowhere. Isolated and alone.

Her mother had so deeply believed that Seles had been meant to be the Chosen that the little girl had begun telling that tale to herself. She had begun to believe it. She had been the product of true love, while the other child had been born through a forced marriage. It was something empty and meaningless, while Seles had been the unlawful child - born from an affair and out of marriage - but her parents actually loved each other. Seles couldn't remember her father.

Neither could Zelos.

He was the boy she knew that came to visit her once a year. They made empty conversation. They ran around in verbal circles while he stared longingly out the window - no matter the weather - and she sat on her bed, fiddling idly with her dolls until it was time for them to part again. They went off into their worlds, doing whatever the worlds told them to do. It was an exhausting cycle.

...Until that day when he became the hero, and whisked her away through her tower window and off into the open air. They ran laughing with exhileration, hand-in-hand as they went together.

They stopped caring about where they were going and who they were supposed to be. They forgot that they were supposed to hate each other for everything as they walked across the vibrant fields of Tethe'alla, one hand cradled in another as they giggled and talked stories of how they would run away together and live as a brother and sister amoung the dense and shaded canopy of the forested Ozette. No one would know who they were. Zelos could cut down trees and Seles could cook for him and carve charms to sell out of the sacred wood that grew there.

They basked in the sunlight as they stopped for a rest, remembering that they should have brought lunch as they rested, allowing Seles to stop and catch her breath.

"We should keep going." Zelos observed, staring back toward the Abbey with a strange, almost resentful look on his face.

"...But..." Seles gasped.

"It's alright," he said, smiling as he stood and looked down at her. "Here. I'll give you a piggy-back ride."

They both knew it was hopeless. They wanted so badly to live independantly and to escape the misery they had been forced to endure alone. Even if they could face it together, they would be happy. All teaching aside, they just wanted to be a proper brother and sister.

However, neither were particularly surprised when Seles' breathing got worse, and Zelos was forced to turn back out of concern. She cried into his shoulder, her little arms wrapped around his neck.

* * *

Nothing would ever possibly speak the feelings and the things they wanted to convey. Zelos came and went every now and again, telling her pointless little tales of the things he was doing at the time. They were all stories that meant nothing that he felt needed to be shared. She appreciated them and took everything in as she sat on her bed staring up at him, twidling absently with her staff. There wasn't much that she knew the words to say. 

She was almost upset that there was a whole other world out there for him to enjoy. She was almost jealous of the life that he was leading, but not quite in the way that she thought she should. She believed that she was the one to be the Chosen for the moral side of the matter - she believed her mother. However, what she really envied was the world, for taking up so much of her brother's life. She lay in bed one night and sniffled to herself. She wished that it would go away so she could have him to herself. She didn't care what happened to the world - it had never been anything to her. She just wanted her brother.

He came to her on her tenth birthday, surprising everyone over the fact that he managed to remember the date. They all stood back in an akward but respectful silence as he took her away to speak to her privately.

"I know you wanted this," he said quietly, opening his hand to reveal his Chosen Crystal - his Cruxius Crystal.

...She couldn't think of anything to say.

"You deserve it more than I do," he said to her, standing quickly to leave before she could protest. He bid his farewell before she could argue, waving over his shoulder and leaving the Abbey.

She considered long and hard what he may have been trying to accomplish in giving her the stone as she stuffed it away under her pillow. When she was feeling lonely, all she had to do was touch it's cold surface and be reminded that her brother loved her. His proof as a Chosen lay under her head every night because he loved her.

Nothing else would ever amount to that.

* * *

One day, he came with a girl. 

"Hey, sis!" He greeted her more casually than usual as they came in from the rain. She watched them from the top of the stairway, peering from behind the railing. Zelos wrung his hair out onto the floor, causing one of the Abbey ladies to scrunch her face in distaste as she ran to fetch them towels. The girl glanced up at her for a moment, but looked away akwardly.

"Hello..." Seles greeted her brother slowly.

"It's _horrible_ outside!" He said, grabbing a towel as one of the women brought it to him. "It's raining cats and dogs out there!"

She was beautiful. She had dark, almond-eyes and dark, smooth hair as well as a perfect figure.

Seles hated her instantly.

"Sis," Zelos waved in order to get the young girl's attention as she stared holes through the woman in the doorway. "I wanted you to meet my girlfriend, Sheena!"

Seles suddenly hated her even more.

Her brother gradually became more and more reluctant to leave Seles alone in the same room as Sheena, so he relaxed significantly after the shinobi announced that she was going to get a shower and head off to bed, leaving Seles and Zelos to talk quietly in the kitchen over a steaming mug of hot chocolate.

Zelos didn't bother touching on the topic of his new partner, and instead went on telling her the stories he usually told her about placed he'd been and the things that he'd done. He shared with her a story about how he got so drunk at the casino in Altamira that he threw up all over the blackjack table and was kicked out and into the water by the manager until he sobered up and was forced to trudge alone back to his hotel, soggy and drunk.

Seles only half-listened, focusing instead on the realization that her brother was, in fact, a lot older than her. How many girls had he dated that she had never seen? How many girls had he kissed without consulting her? She felt hurt and betrayed. How could he? How could he forget about her for that big-busted tease?

She barely managed to build the courage to look at him throughout the evening as she stared deeply down into hell through her half-empty mug of hot chocolate. Zelos eventually became tired and abandoned her to go to bed for the night. He told her she should do so herself before patting her on the head and moving towards his room. Seles remained where she was, even after she heared his bedroom door close behind him.

How could he _do_ this to her?

A _week._

She was staying for a _week_!

Seles sizzled relentlessly while Zelos pretended he didn't notice as he went on about his merry way, doing all of the things he did every day when he was stuck out in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't much Seles could sayto the Chosen, so she chose instead to stay silent. She didn't want her brother to go away. She wanted _that woman_ to _leave_.

But she wasn't going to.

Sheena attempted to make pitiful small-talk with her many times over a few days, but Seles would simply reply with sharp words and firey eyes and Sheena would back away, confused. Seles _would_ win. There was no way she was going to back down now.

Sheena was a trained _shinobi_ from the hidden village of _Mizuho_. Seles was pretty sure that she would be the town herself if she was ever in the area. Sheena wasn't so special. She wasn't that pretty. With that ugly... _forehead_ and... _face_! Seles couldn't stand her! A Few more moments spent in the same room as her within Seles' Abbey, and the little girl was sure she was going to explode in her fury.

She didn't look that strong, Seles thought, standing in the doorway of Seles' room on the fourth of her seven-day stay. It was closer to being over than starting now, but that made little difference to the almost-Chosen. She cleared her throat to get attention, and Sheena turned to her from where she had been organizing her cards carefully on her bed.

"Hello Seles," she said, smiling politely in spite of everything.

Calm. Cool. Collected. Seles - the sister of the Chosen...

"Stay away from my brother, you filthy succubus!"

...or... not...

Sheena stared at her, stunned for a moment, giving Seles time to start chanting madly, cradling her staff. "Abs-"

Her hands were knocked up in the air, her wand flying up and landing somewhere nearby. She couldn't look to tell where, because she suddenly discovered her face in the floor. Maybe the shinobi were decent after all.

"What are you _doing_!" Sheena cried, exasperated. "You could have killed me!"

"What are _you_ doing!" Zelos cried, louder. Seles could hear his footsteps as he ascended the stairway. "Sheena-"

"She tried to attack me!" Sheena explained.

Zelos uttered nonsense as he stammered over shock, walking over slowly and observing the scene before he finally called out a reasonably decipherable "...get off of her!"

"Seles," Sheena murmured, sounding smooth and patient. "Give me your word that you won't go trying that again."

"No," Seles growled.

"What?"

"Stop!" Zelos yelled, getting impatient. "Just... just get off of her!"

"Zelos!" She tried to _kill_ me!"

"I'm sure she had a perfectly good reason!"

"HEY!"

"Didn't you, Seles?"

Silence.

"A perfectly good reason, Zelos!"

"Get off of her!"

"No! She's crazy! And so are you!"

"Just leave her alone!"

"Well, fine! But she's your responsibility now."

Seles discovered the pressure released from her arm and her back, and she sat up only to have to turn to look at Sheena and Zelos. However, the two of them were busy glaring at each other.

"How could you _do_ that! She's a little girl!"

"Zelos," Sheena said slowly. "She. Tried. To. Kill. Me!"

"I'm sure she didn't mean it! Right Seles?"

"Didn't mean it! How can you mess something like that up!"

Seles stood slowly, turning to face her brother - calm and composed - after brushing down her skirts and fixing her hat. "I did!"

"What!" Zelos squinted in confusion. "You..."

"I _hate_ this woman!" Seles yelled, pointing directly at Sheena, who was a lot closer to her than Zelos. "All she wants is to take you away from me, don't you see! All she wants is to seduce you! I _hate_ her! She's the trash of Tethe'alla! She doesn't-"

"_Stop_," Zelos hissed, darting forward and grabbing Seles' wrist, pulling her along at taking her into her room, so quickly that she didn't have the breath to protest.

He swiftly shut the door behind them, spinning her to face him in the center of the room as he dropped to his knees to get closer to her height, and stared at her eye-to-eye. Seles averted hers, denying her actions as wrong.

"Seles..." he sighed lightly. "What are you doing...?"

"I hate her."

"Why?"

"She's taking you away from me," Seles admitted, her voice quiet as she closed her eyes in order to deny herself the image of his face.

"No one's taking me away from you," Zelos explained. "You're my sister."

"If you can believe that, you're worse than she is," she said, opening her eyes and joining them with his.

"What?"

"It's because you're a _boy_," Seles growled. "You're going to go off and get married and have kids and live happily ever after and leave me here alone to rot all by myself!"

"I would never do that!" Zelos protested, hurt. Just like she had intented.

But Seles was angry and there was no stopping her. She was frustrated by the weakness that she had been forced to display, and she chose to make up for it in her fury. She swore she would make him understand her anger with his pain. "Wouldn't you?" She cried, moving away so Zelos' hands were no longer resting on her shoulders. "You leave me every time that you come! You come to see me, only to go away again! I'm going to be stuck in this hut for the rest of my life without anyone! And it'll be because of that slease outside taking advantage of your horomones! Do you think about me every moment you spend outside these walls? Do you remember me when you're having fun on your own?" Zelos moved as if to say something, but Seles just continued - inturrupting him. "Do you remember me when you're slaughtering your enemies? Do you think about me when you're travelling the world with her? Do you wonder what _I'm_ doing when you're sleeping with her!"

Zelos just stared at her with the most heartbreaking expression that she would ever get to see on the face of another human being; but she just continued on her verbal attack.

"You don't, do you! And you won't! One of these days, you'll wake up and you won't know who I am because _she_ will be there, taking up your time and your mind and I'm going to shrivel up and die here! And you won't care because you won't remember who I am, because of _her_! She's going to take you away from me, Zelos! Are you going to let her!"

"Seles... Is that how you really think things are?" Zelos asked, the painful expression still on his face. It hurt her to look at him, but her rage was too high to care.

"Yes!" She screamed. "One of these days, you're never coming back! So why don't you just leave right now!"

"...is that really what you want?"

No... "Yes!" she cried. "Get out of here, and take that demon with you!"

* * *

He came back again one day only to take away the only thing she had to remind herself of him. He came with many people behind him, all happy together and cheerful while he wore a painful smile. They may not have noticed, but she hadn't seen a smile like that before. She knew right away what it was, what it meant... but she didn't have the courage to be kind to him. She threw an image over her weakness, bearing the visage of anger while he bore the mask of cheer. She growled and bit at him with her words. He tried to blow them off with that smile, but she could hear it in his voice when she pierced it. She wanted to cheer in triumph. She wanted to cry and apologize. She called him her brother as he descended the stairs. 

"Ha!" A boy no older than her smiled with a strange kind of satisfaction. "You called him brother!"

"N-No I didn't!" She snapped, making that smirk go away. "Please leave!"

Downstairs, his friends were silently confused about his relationship with his sister. They hadn't seen that kind of attitude from the Chosen before.

"As you left, she called you 'brother'," Lloyd offered, hoping the admission of affection would help his friend feel better.

"Oh." It didn't. "Well, if we're done here, we should get going."

* * *

"He hates me," she groaned into her pillow late that night, her arms curled up and underneath it, lonely with the absence of the stone that told the world who he was. It was the stone that reminded Seles that he was her brother. Now that it was gone, she wasn't so sure, and the pain of regret was building a knot at the back of her throat. "...he hates me so much..." 

"She hates me," he sighed to himself. They had made the decision to make camp outside that night rather than travelling more than they had to, and he stared up at her window, half-asleep. He was tempted to throw rocks up at it to get her attention, but he was convinced she might throw her dresser back out at him, so he didn't.

There would never be a girl for Zelos quite like his sister.

* * *

"Let's get out of here." 

She stared at him across the front steps in disbelief as he held his hand out to her from the bottom of the stairs. She squinted out into the bright daylight over the open earth, glancing at the person who had come with him; a tall boy wearing red and with short brown hair...

"Well?"

He waited for a long time before she nodded slowly, eyes locked with his. She had seen this many times before, but now he was finally speaking to her like his sister once again. After everything, he had forgiven her in the end.

He nodded back with a sincere smile. "Alright," and he stepped up the stairs to take her hand and lead her down and away from the Abbey once and for all. "You haven't even been able to see the world that you'd lived in all your life."

"What?" Seles asked quietly, rubbing her eyes against the light of day.

"The world has changed," Zelos said, leading her over to a strange silver and blue contraption, and he lifted her and let her down so she was sitting on it. "Don't worry, Seles! I'll show you everything there is to see, because you're free now. Both of us are."

She never knew how close he had come to never seeing her again. He would have been better off if she had kept his crystal - he never would have been able to become the thing he hated - but she would never know anything that happened there. Everything was over and done with, and Zelos was a part of the family of friends once again. The world was whole and new. Everything was right.

"I'm sorry," he murmured to her before they took to the sky. "There is no 'Chosen' anymore."

"...What?"

"The things you knew about the world - which I imagine wasn't much in the first place - are mostly null and void. We aren't really anyone anymore. We're brother and sister. This is the world now."

"...I see..."

"I'm sorry. I know you wanted it," he apologized quietly. "But... this means you don't have to be locked away in that tower anymore!"

Before she could muster a response, they were flying up on the air in the metal bird that he had come in on. Seles lost her breath looking down upon the world through the scent and the tickle of her brother's flowing hair as she wrapped her arms around his sides and held on. Even if she fell, she had no doubt that he would save her. He was her brother now - nothing else. And that was all she needed.

* * *

I apologize for the ending... itseems a little rushed. I wanted to put whatever it is that happened after the tournament in there, but I still don't know what happened there, so I skipped it. All comments and criticisms are greatly appreciated! ...what did you think? 


End file.
